Through the looking glass

Related content

Health systems globally and more so in India, have suffered from Asymmetry of information, with care giver making decisions on behalf of patients, primarily due to patients lacking adequate information. Transparency will help patients take charge of their own health and make critical decisions like which health facility to select or which doctor to visit or what is the appropriate price to pay for a particular set of services.

KPMG has undertaken a multi-country assessment, which attempts to understand how different health systems are positioned from the perspective of transparency. The study mapped 27 indicators across six dimensions to understand how the individual countries were ranked. While there is a consolidated report which compares different countries, this India mini-report is specifically designed to provide more detailed reflections of the country results and associated insights.

An analysis of the dimension-specific results shows that India recorded its highest scores for transparency of ‘Governance’ (44%), ‘Personal Healthcare Data’ (43%), and ‘Finance’ (42%). Scores ranged from 29% to 31% across the other three dimensions of the transparency index: ‘Quality of Healthcare’, ‘Communication of Healthcare Data’ and ‘Patient Experience’. Significant improvement could be achieved across all these dimensions.

While sporadic experimentation continues, the government will need to take the lead in making the health system more transparent. Developing basic framework to report select parameters voluntarily should be the first step towards developing a transparent health system. Linking performance with incentives and developing a central repository which provides all available information to public, needs to follow. While continuing to garner learnings through various initiatives, governments can gradually move from voluntary to mandatory disclosure of information to help build a transparent health system.